


High-Speed Elevator

by Hawkwitch



Series: pre [6]
Category: Yes Minister, Yes Prime Minister
Genre: Dark Comedy, Gen, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-10
Updated: 2015-11-10
Packaged: 2018-05-01 01:04:08
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 740
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5186324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Hawkwitch/pseuds/Hawkwitch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Title: High-Speed Elevator<br/>Characters: Sir Arnold<br/>Genre: Dark Comedy<br/>Rating: G<br/>Warnings: none<br/>Summary: Pre-canon. Timing is everything. The story sheds some light into how Sir Arnold thinks.</p>
            </blockquote>





	High-Speed Elevator

He had accomplished practically everything he had ever wished for in a rather early age. But funnily enough his family was not that proud of his acheivements.  
A while ago Sir Arnold’s wife had wanted a divorce. Essentially for the purpose of marrying a billionaire. Good riddance in principle, but in practise he said he will no way be dumped in such degrading way, or she’s dead. However, she can live with that chap if she wants to, he doesn’t care, provided they are doing it outside of London. (And they did.)  
Sir Arnold had an elder brother who was a religious fanatic who went to church at least five times a week. Their relations had been quite bad since he was 15. His brother was endlessly judgemental about his machiavellian schemes an his way of life. Sir Arnold would be quick to point out that it was ’Better to reign in Hell than serve in Heaven’ as Lord Byron had once remarked.  
But quite honestly there was noone who fully understood him.  
It was not like anyone had ever told Sir Arnold how to get into that high-speed elevator that went straight to the top floor. It was not like anyone had even told him where that elevator was. He relied mainly on his own analysis where to take risks and where not. There had been several moments in his life when there was everything to win with a single bold act and to him it was even a bit funny that other people somehow just did not see these things.  
In the earliest stages of his career he had done some boring low-life specialized jobs in Home Office. Actually he was pretty bad at dealing with this petty trash. He could not pay sufficient attention to detail and was endlessly frustrated and bored. And he did not quite know what kind of a job he wanted, other than having some lofty goals such as ruling the world. And he hated his boss. People above him were complete barbarians, and he could do their jobs so much better, yet they were above him... frequently he got dirty looks for being too arrogant and ambitious. His real career only started when The Department of Administrative Affairs was set up. They were hiring a bunch of people. The recruitment was a chaos and many people who did not deserve it, got great jobs. But he did not approach the department like ordinary applicants did. Somehow Arnold managed to meet people who were in charge of the set-up of this new department. He could just sense that they had no clue what they were doing. Somehow he felt like this sort of ignorance was ripe for abuse. He presented his case what could be improved in recruiting and with a bit of luck he persuaded them to hire him as a Recruitment Director. He was not the least shaken by lacking experience. He would start doing it and learn how on the roll. He hired all suitable people. And he hired Humpy. And fired some unsuitable recruits even before they actually started in this department. There were thousands of potential applicants begging at his doorstep and... he loved it. Suddenly he had so much power and all he could think was, where had he been before.  
The first big killing was the sweetest one. Yet the old problem that there were still people above him did not go away. At least not without some creative effort. Timing for it had to be sensed, it was not even possible to describe it in words. And of course he had destroyed all evidence. Then other people would look at him in awe and envy him, but what these people never understood was that these moments were not there always. And other people would most certainly not see him sweat. Frequently there were most frustrating periods of silence, maybe lasting for years. And what these other people again did not know was that it was at best useless and at worst foolish to act in times like this. Something had to be going on that he could smell in the air. Wind had to start blowing. And what other people did not understand and would be endlessly frustrated about was that it was not so important which way the wind was blowing – it was far more important to anticipate it early when it starts blowing.


End file.
